Hurricane hunters kept busy by three storms

Fourteen named storms have formed in the Atlantic so far this year, in a hurricane season just hitting its stride, according to Dennis Feltgen of the National Hurricane Center.

By
Andrea Mustain, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer /
September 9, 2011

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This NOAA satellite image taken Friday, Sept. 9, at 1:45 PM EDT shows Hurricane Katia located about 385 miles south-southwest of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Tropical Storm Maria, about 135 miles northeast of Barbados, and Tropical Storm Nate, located about 150 miles west of Campeche, Mexico.

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With Hurricane Katia and Tropical Storms Maria and Nate swirling in the Atlantic and over the Gulf of Mexico, Air Force Reserve hurricane hunters are keeping busy this week, sending planes into all three storms — the maximum capability for the 10 weather-chasing WC-130J aircraft the unit owns.

Although Lt. Col. Sean Pierce, director of operations, said that juggling schedules for the 53rd's 10 aircraft and 20 flight crews is certainly a big challenge, he told OurAmazingPlanet the current situation isn't extraordinary. [In the Eye of the Storm: NASA's Hurricane Hunters]

"Three storms — it's somewhat routine business for the squadron here," Pierce said. "For us, August through September is race day. You train all year," he said, adding that although hurricane season starts months earlier, the pace of operations picks up dramatically when August arrives.

The weather officer on board the aircraft saw the telltale signs that indicated the system had rotation; in addition, its winds were whipping along at a brisk 60 mph (97 kph). The information was passed on to the National Hurricane Center, which then radioed back to the crew that it was official: Tropical Storm Nate had been born.

Pierce was aboard the flight. "It was great day for us, actually, because oftentimes you're out there looking and it takes several days," he said, "so we were able to accomplish a lot in one flight."

Storm trouble

It was a welcome change from last week, when the 53rd had to evacuate Keesler Air Force Base planes and personnel to Houston and St. Croix, as Tropical Storm Lee barreled across the United States. Although the storm wasn't forecast to rain down destruction on Biloxi, Pierce said that the high winds would have made it impossible for the 53rd's planes to get off the ground.

"Even though we fly in hurricanes, we can't take off and land in them," Pierce said. And when storms are raging the unit can't decide to just stay home, he added.

Instruments and crew aboard hurricane-hunting aircraft provide information that forecasters can't get any other way. Tropical cyclones — the umbrella term for tropical storms and hurricanes — occur over the ocean, a vast region that lacks the network of weather-sensing instruments available on land. Storms at sea can only be tracked by satellite.

"Satellite technology is not sufficient to penetrate the upper level clouds," Pierce said. "The only way to do that over water is to put an aircraft into the storm environment."

"We need these hurricane hunter aircraft planes," said the NHC's Feltgen, who described what the planes do as essentially performing an MRI of a hurricane. "It's going into the storm to figure out its structure, its strength, and all that data is used in computer models to better track these storms," he said.

"Nate could become a hurricane by Saturday, but as far as where it's going to go, that's anybody's guess right now," Feltgen said, and said that anyone who lives within the reach of a hurricane should always have a plan ready.